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Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Two truths and a lie...*
...or perhaps the other way around. You decide:
[Today's real post has been indefinitely relegated to the 'cooling-off' file. Sorry.]
1. I drank my very first full cup of coffee (as opposed to taking a sip of other people's coffee and grimacing) when I was 20 years old.
2. After a 'hazy' weekend spent in Tijuana with some sailor buddies, I once woke up with a marriage certificate stuffed in my pocket bearing my name and the name of a woman I had no recollection of ever meeting. I haven't been back to Mexico since.
3. I didn't have a 21st birthday. I lost it while my ship was crossing the International Date Line.
Fellow bloggers/journalers: Feel free to try this one out on your own readership.
* shamelessly ganked from Lachlan
Posted by David Bogner on January 30, 2007 | Permalink
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I'm going with #2 on this one...
Posted by: matlabfreak | Jan 30, 2007 3:05:02 PM
matlabfreak... Um, as truth or lie?
Posted by: treppenwitz | Jan 30, 2007 3:19:33 PM
I'm going with the Coffee comment being a bold-faced lie. How old were you as a Sailor?
I was the only person I knew in my Navy career who did not drink coffee. In fact I didn't enjoy my first cuppa until 6 months before I retired... and I'm still not a big drinker.
Posted by: Oceanguy | Jan 30, 2007 3:33:06 PM
As the lie... seeing as how the game has only one of 'em. *smiles*
Posted by: matlabfreak | Jan 30, 2007 4:32:34 PM
Oh my, this is hardly the way to break the news to Zahava. (Of those three options, the only one that's technically impossible is #3. Unless your west-bound ship crossed the date line precisely at the stroke of midnight, you had 21st birthday - even though it may have lasted only a few seconds.
Posted by: Bob | Jan 30, 2007 5:13:55 PM
Hola David, corazon! At last I have found you again!
Yo te quiero,
Rosalita Juarez-Bogner
Posted by: Kayla | Jan 30, 2007 5:26:02 PM
i think 2 is a lie...hi trepp...for some dumb reason i have not been able to access your blog/val's blog and one more friend's blog...but another miracle in the holy land and yahoooooooooooo here you are...missed you...glad to be back
Posted by: marallyn | Jan 30, 2007 5:45:58 PM
Ummmmm.... not for nothing, but number 2. had BETTER be the lie....
Posted by: zahava | Jan 30, 2007 6:10:13 PM
Oh, I hate this game...
But I would guess that 3 is the lie.
Posted by: Sara K | Jan 30, 2007 6:18:13 PM
hmmm...zahava was so flustered she couldn't even manage to type the number she wanted. which one would that be mrs. b.?
well, mazal tov, felicitaciones, and my guess is that #3 is not true per bob who sounds like he knows what he is talking about.
Posted by: yonah | Jan 30, 2007 7:21:41 PM
Hi David,
I have no idea about the truth and fib game, but...
I'm happy that you're letting yourself cool down a bit... I have to do the same sometimes so that my blog doesn't become overinundated with negativity.
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
Posted by: Maksim-Smelchak | Jan 30, 2007 8:15:29 PM
If number two is correct can we stream Zahava's reaction live. ;)
Excuse me while I put on my helmet. Skillets hurt.
Posted by: Jack | Jan 31, 2007 12:29:52 AM
Am I the only one who read Memoirs of a Geisha? This seemed to be the popular party game in pre-war Japan.
I don't care how impossible # 3 is, I will side with Zahava and say #2 is a lie (or a great prank played by your sailing buddies).
Glad you are back home.
Posted by: Chedva | Jan 31, 2007 3:31:28 AM
Number 2....who would admit to doing that!
Posted by: LeeAnn | Jan 31, 2007 3:42:10 AM
Since you said that it may be two lies and a truth, I am going to say that only #1 is the truth!
Posted by: RaggedyMom | Jan 31, 2007 4:11:58 AM
LOL
i'm not even going to guess ;-)
Posted by: Steg (dos iz nit der šteg) | Jan 31, 2007 5:28:26 AM
Having observed sonarmen on libs, I call #2 a bullseye. Listening to flatulent fish (and not much else in the case of STGs) for weeks on end causes all sorts of strange things to happen once they hit beach.
:)
P.S. Boy do I have a great sea story about a problem child sonarman and his run-in with the Fort Lauderdale PD.
Posted by: K Newman | Jan 31, 2007 5:56:57 AM
My guess is that they're all lies. The title said there was one lie. Perhaps it was referring to the "two truths in the title". The lie is that there are two truths.
Or maybe I'm really thinking about this too hard.
Posted by: Jonah | Jan 31, 2007 7:37:56 AM
It's possible that there are two lies and a truth. Well, Bob made a very strong argument for # 3... Although I'm not sure that's what you meant. That's one of them. # 1 sounds quite plausible (I *hated* coffee until I was about 18 myself) # 2 sounds unlikely... but then, you've had some pretty crazy stories... Well, I'll go with your wink that there could be two lies. # 2 and # 3. So #1 is the Truth. (Or is it?!) You'll reveal the answers, RIGHT?!
Posted by: Irina | Jan 31, 2007 8:01:08 AM
Oceanguy... I was in the navy from 18-22 years old. I only fell into the coffee trap when I became a PO2 and had to stand a lot of late Officer of the Deck watches in port and Sonar Supervisor watches at sea. It wasn't that I needed the extra alertness... I think there was some status to being senior enough to be carrying around a coffee cup while on the job. :-)
Matlabfreak... Yes, you guessed it.
Bob.. You are splitting hairs where I was being quite general. I couple of friends and I were on our way up to the flight deck at a few minutes before midnight to hold an impromptu celebration of my birthday (and that of another guy who was born on the same day). On the way we passed the Navigation officer who had been relieved early as OOD and he reminded us that at midnight the ship was moving the calendar forward a full day as we would cross the IDL some time during the midwatch. Needless to say we were a bid deflated.
Kayla... Welcome back! I didn't realize I had gone missing. :-)
marallyn... You're not the first to tell me you were having trouble seeing my site. Sorry to say I haven't gotten much response from my host (typepad). And yes, #2 is the lie.
Zahava... Yes sweetie, #2 is the lie. The only weddings I have ever had were ours and that other one in Haiti. :-)
Sara K ... Nope, # 2. See my response to Bob.
Yonah... Very cute. No, there is no Mexican bride pining away for her missing sailor. :-)
Maksim-Smelchak... I may post it today since I did some heavy editing last night... but we'll see. :-)
Jack... That would be a sight (ahem, if that one were true, that is). :-)
Chedva... No, I read it too... but for some reason I don't recall that game from Memoirs of a Geisha. It's been a while though. The only 'game' I recall was the one where old men paid for the privilege to deflower young virgins. :-)
LeeAnn... Well, apparently some people would since my roommate in Sonar 'A' school admitted it to me. :-)
RaggedyMom... Half credit since #3 is also true. :-)
Steg (dos iz nit der šteg)... chicken! :-)
K Newman... While doing time in FLEASWTRACENPAC in Point Loma we kids got into more than our fair share of trouble. One roommate actually experienced # 2 which is where I came up with this 'lie'. A guy in my division woke up after a night of heavy steaming in Hong Kong with a big bandage on his chest. I heard him whimpering on the 'rack' below mine and asked what was wrong. He just pointed to the bandages and asked if I would remove them and tell me how bad the damage was since he was too afraid to look. Tattooed across his chest was a four masted 'tall ship' with full sails and rigging. The tattoo must have cost a fortune (even in Hong Kong) but when we got back to Pearl Harbor at the end of the WestPac his wife made him get it removed with laser treatments (even more expensive). The results were not pretty... he ended up looking like a burn victim.
Jonah... I should only be that creative and imaginative. :-) Nope, just #2.
Irina... You're over-thinking things. :-) Yes, #2 was the lie.
Posted by: treppenwitz | Jan 31, 2007 9:01:29 AM
i give Kayla points for the most inventive comment. Go Rosalita Juarez-Bogner! :-)
I was very upset... just got back from New Zealand, but went the Singapore route, so I didn't get to cross the dateline... Perhaps it would have made my 36 hours of flight travel and layovers seem better somehow...
Posted by: nrg | Jan 31, 2007 9:41:13 AM
Trep, I am sorry, none of these are sea stories as they are not prefaced by, "This is no s......"
OFS Just another cannon cocker from Olongapo
Posted by: Old Fat Sailor | Feb 1, 2007 4:29:50 AM
David,
We had a rider on board once named Lester. Lester was a problem child and since his boat was in the yards, they sent him to us for a two week run down to AUTEC to see if he could behave. This was supposed to be his last chance.
So we made a run down to Port Everglades (Fort Lauderdale) first to load exercise weapons. Lester goes on liberty and heads over to a dance club on Fort Lauderdale Beach. This particular club employed attractive young ladies in one-piece swimsuits as bartenders. Lester got drunk and tried to help himself to one of the bartenders. The bouncers threw him out the door and called the police.
Lester gets up and staggers down the street to the Best Western motel, where he crashed a wedding reception being held in the banquet room. The bride was in tears, so the men ganged up on him and ran him out of the room and back into the lobby. He told the clerk that he wanted a room and the clerk told him that he was drunk and to get out. Lester went over the front desk to help himself to a room key when Fort Lauderdale PD showed up.
Lester made the mistake of scuffling with the cops, so after they adjusted his attitude, they stuffed him in a car and took back to the pier. Lester was then dumped on the pier at the foot of the brow. Lester, who was still in handcuffs, looked up at one portly officer and said "I can't believe my tax money goes to pay a big fat pig like you." The cop pinned Lester's head to the pier with his foot and said "I could kill you, but I would lose my pension."
Lester was dropped down the hatch and dumped in his rack to sleep it off. They kept him on board for the rest of the week as a liberty risk and flew him back to Groton the day before we got underway. We never saw him again.
OFS,
The "This is no sh.." part occurred to me too, but this is a family board and I didn't want to go there. However, as true squids we all know to tack that on anyway.
:-)
Posted by: K Newman | Feb 1, 2007 7:06:46 AM
One more thing....
No reply to my wisecrack about STGs? Dude, you're slacking.
:-)
Posted by: K Newman | Feb 1, 2007 7:13:12 AM
nrg... Remind me to tell you all the fun I once had crossing the equator on my ship. :-)
Old Fat Sailor... I would have included that (as is required before ANY sea story) but this is a family site. :-)
K Newman... Ah, good times. :-) Oh, and as to the dig at STGs, I take it all in stride since, with all due modesty, I had a knack for finding and tracking you guys for uncanny lengths of time.
Posted by: treppenwitz | Feb 1, 2007 5:52:47 PM
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